The invention relates to the technical field of child carriers.
The ideas of the back-mounted child carrier, and the front-mounted child carrier for carrying small children so that they face the wearer, are known from the prior art.
The front-mounted child carrier is used for children of a very tender age up to a weight of about 7 kilos. It allows the child to be carried facing the wearer for the first few weeks, then facing outward afterward. FIGS. 1 and 2 of the drawings in particular depict one embodiment and method of wearing. A securing harness is passed around the wearer, with a belt and straps connecting the baby carrier and the harness.
Back-mounted baby carriers are suitable for children only from the age of nine months up to about two years. They are built with a rigid load-bearing framework to which the rear side of the seat part and backrest of the child is attached, possibly with a protective and covering hood. The front side of the framework includes elements for passing around the waist of the wearer, shoulder straps for resting on the shoulders of the wearer and connecting and tensioning straps. Lateral strips connect the backrest part and the framework to avoid the child tipping from the seat part.
In addition, back-mounted child carriers may, within their interior volume, have a fixed retractable textile strip which can support the child in its first age range from about 9 to 12 months, at a different level than the bottom part of the bottom of the child carrier seat, which is designed to be used when the child is a little bigger up to the age of 2. Thus, said child carrier allows children of different sizes within the age range from 9 months to 2 years to be positioned very safely.
Thus, according to the prior art, there are two different products which exist, without there being any commonality or compatibility between them.
Hitherto, manufacturers have not conducted research or worked toward this goal.
What this then means is that users have to have two lots of equipment, with the associated costs.
The problem posed arises when users wish to go out on a walk or on an excursion, and there is then a choice to be made over which product to use. However, in practice, for this use, front-mounted child carriers are not particularly suitable and in use hamper the movements of the wearer.
The approach that the applicant has taken has therefore been to look into designing a child carrier which can meet the objective of offering the user a simple child carrier which more widely covers the age range from the first few weeks up to the age of two years.
The desired objective was to offer the user a child carrier which, through an original design, gave modular use both of a front-mounted baby carrier and of the back-mounted carrier, and for the abovementioned age range.
Another desired objective according to the invention was to offer a novel child carrier which was simple to use, easy to operate by adapting it according to the age of the child.
Another desired objective, according to the invention was to offer a child carrier which could be used independently in these variant versions depending on the age of the child.
According to a first feature of the invention, the child carrier is modular and consists of a back-mounted child carrier designed to accommodate internally a front-mounted child carrier, the two child carriers being arranged with linking and temporarily securing means allowing either the front-mounted child carrier to be detached and used independently, or it to be incorporated into the back-mounted child carrier so that a child of a very tender age can be carried.
According to another feature of the invention, the front-mounted child carrier is fitted on its front face with a cap shape having stiffening means and capable of being adjusted and positioned over the upper part of the front face of the framework of the back-mounted child carrier.
These features and others yet, will become clearly apparent from the remainder of the description.